Lead Software Engineer

We are looking for a Backend Tech Lead to work alongside the Head of Development in setting the technical direction of our Golang backend, enforce the engineering standard for the team, and stay hands-on in the code while doing it. This is an opportunity for an engineer who wants real influence over architecture and team practice without stepping away from building.

About the Role

This is the technical bridge between the Head of Development and the wider backend team, and it is fully hands-on in development. This role contributes proposals and technical direction into technical design discussions and owns the detailed design, turning it into concrete, unambiguous technical detail the rest of the team can build from. The effect is that the team always has the precise specifics and technical guidance it needs to produce high-quality deliverables. The role works AI-first: directing and rigorously reviewing AI-assisted implementation rather than hand-coding the bulk of it.

This is a technical leadership position rather than a pure people-management one. You will mentor and guide engineers and may hold dotted-line responsibility for their growth.

What You'll DoTechnical Ownership & Detailed Design

• Contribute proposals and technical direction into architecture and Functional Design Specification (FDS) discussions.
• Own the detailed design: take the agreed functional design and architecture and translate it into concrete, unambiguous technical specifications that the development team can implement directly.
• Act as the team's technical reference point for detailed design and implementation decisions.
• Run detailed-design reviews and continuously raise the engineering standard
• Maintain coding conventions, testing discipline, code review quality, and operational readiness.
• Produce high fidelity prototypes to facilitate detailed design discussions
• Support effort estimation and workload planning

Hands-On Backend Engineering

• Design and build highly scalable, secure Golang microservices, staying actively in the codebase.staying close to the code by directing and rigorously reviewing AI-assisted implementation, and intervening hands-on where judgement and security demand it.
• Design and implement RESTful and gRPC APIs with strong guarantees around secure communication and data integrity.
• Lead containerisation efforts and ensure secure orchestration practices for production.

AI-Augmented Engineering

• Define and mature the team's AI-assisted development practice, setting the standard for how AI tooling is used across design, implementation, and testing.
• Establish and enforce review standards for AI-generated code, with rigorous verification of correctness, security, and maintainability.
• Raise team leverage and throughput through effective tooling, prompting practice, and automation, keeping human judgement firmly in control of design and security decisions.

Security & DevSecOps

• Champion DevSecOps: embed security throughout the CI/CD pipeline and ensure secure, automated deployments.
• Enforce robust Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), sound encryption practices, and compliance with standards such as ISO 27001, IEC 62443, and OWASP.
• Proactively identify and remediate vulnerabilities in distributed systems, applying best practices for memory safety and secure coding.

Team & Mentorship

• Mentor mid- and senior-level engineers, growing their technical depth and judgement., systems-design judgement, and ability to lead AI-assisted delivery.
• Lead by example in code reviews, pairing, and design discussions.
• Help shape hiring, onboarding, and the team's technical culture.

Delivery, Quality & Operations

• Be accountable for the technical delivery, reliability, and operational health of your team's services.
• Lead the creation and maintenance of comprehensive unit, integration, and securitysystem, integration, unit, and security tests.
• Drive performance and scalability improvements through rigorous debugging, profiling, and architectural refinement.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with front-end developers, UI/UX designers, and DevOps engineers to deliver a cohesive, secure product.

Documentation & Knowledge Sharing

• Maintain clear documentation for system architecture, security policies, and compliance requirements.

Do you have experience in Microservices?, Do you have a Bachelor's degree?, * 7+ years of professional backend development experience, with strong, recent Golang expertise and deep grounding in microservices architecture and secure coding.

• A demonstrable track record of technical leadership at the detailed-design and implementation level
• Deep expertise with Docker, container orchestration, and secure deployment workflows.
• Proven experience designing and operating security-focused CI/CD pipelines.
• Strong knowledge of relational (e.g. PostgreSQL) and NoSQL (e.g. MongoDB) databases, with a focus on database security.
• Solid command of messaging protocols, distributed-system design, and advanced debugging techniques.
• Hands-on experience enforcing security frameworks such as OWASP, CIS Benchmarks, or NIST.
• Professional experience working in a regulated industry
• Demonstrated ability to lead AI-assisted development at scale, directing and rigorously reviewing AI-generated code.
• Proven ownership of system-level and integration test strategy, not only unit testing.

Desirable

• Contributions to open-source projects or security tooling.
• Experience with threat detection, vulnerability management, and secure software lifecycle frameworks.
• Experience leading or coordinating across multiple engineers.
• Understanding of industrial control systems (ICS) security and OT environments.

Leadership & Soft Skills

• Strong communication and stakeholder-management abilities.
• A genuine mentor, able to grow engineers and foster a collaborative, high-standards environment.
• A proactive, solution-oriented approach to complex problems.
• Sound judgement in balancing delivery pressure against technical and security risk., * Ability to commute to / relocate to Richmond, TW9 1DL before starting.
• Valid United Kingdom work authorisation (required).[MJ1]
• Education: Bachelor's degree (preferred).

Join deltaflare and lead the charge in building innovative, secure solutions for industrial control systems.

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: £80,000.00-£90,000.00 per year

Education:

• Bachelor's (preferred)

Experience:

• Software development: 7 years (preferred)
• Go: 5 years (preferred)

• Highly competitive salary tailored for experienced technical leaders, plus performance and yearly bonuses.
• Genuine technical ownership of groundbreaking technology with direct impact on industrial security.
• Access to professional development opportunities and conferences.
• A dynamic, collaborative culture that encourages innovation.

deltaflare is a leading provider of cutting-edge cyber security solutions. We are building Phoenix Platformphoenix, our flagship product designed to protect industrial control systems and operational technology (OT) environments.